


Home Is Wherever You Are

by ChrissiHR



Series: tumblr prompt fics [6]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, But Some Things Just Don't Translate, Catharsis, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, Like the Electoral College, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Thor, Thor Is Not Stupid, Thor Is a Good Bro, Thor's Cape is Darcy's Woobie, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000, cuddle puddle, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 16:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrissiHR/pseuds/ChrissiHR
Summary: Thor returns to Midgard with only a word of warning from Heimdall: his chosen sister and his beloved are in distress. Cuddles, hair braiding, and Thor's cape help soothe their wounded hearts before the hard work begins.





	Home Is Wherever You Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [McGregorsWench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McGregorsWench/gifts).



> Inspiration credit goes to [McGregorsWench](http://archiveofourown.org/users/McGregorsWench/pseuds/McGregorsWench) for [the most accurate tumblr tag ever](http://mcgregorswench.tumblr.com/post/152896753895). 
> 
> I poured my feelings into a long author's note when I first wrote this story last year, but it said, effectively, I usually don't make a habit of writing/posting reaction fic when I'm still upset. I held off on this, but my feelings haven't changed, so I think it stands as a nice little fandom/current events time capsule.

Oppressive emotion weighed heavy on the air like a gathering storm as Thor hurried in from the rooftop landing site upon his return to Midgard. Heimdall warned only that his lightning sister had need of him, and his love, Jane, was little better off. He knew not exactly what he expected awaiting his return, but this strange and somber atmosphere was not it.

“They’re in the greenhouse,” Clint signed from the catwalk stretching across the cavernous lobby. Deep lines scored a ruddy face. His legs dangled, head hung low, shoulder pressed against the railing as if it, alone, prevented his weary form from plummeting to the floor below. Thor had never witnessed such a troubled mien upon his archer friend, nor this voluntary silence. Even when his hearing devices malfunctioned, Clint spoke as he signed.

It was not to be this day, however.

(The Allspeak gave him only the high- and low-lights of red and dark grey accompanying anger-frustration-disappointment-sadness-empathy. Useful though the universal tongue could be, body language came across merely as vague impression of color-scent-emotion rather than word-for-word match.)

Signing his thanks, Thor altered course, making haste to the facility’s indoor kitchen gardens. The sight that greeted him did not bode well. A pair of wine bottles lay empty. A third in Darcy’s hand neared its end, as well. She drained it directly from the spout sans goblet or stein. Crossed-legged, she sat upon a wide tuft of moss, amidst an island of delicate flowers in a curious design that mimicked nature at the center of the hot house. At her back knelt Jane, bracketing her best friend between her knees and weaving tiny, blue flowers into his sister’s wild curls.

For the first time in as long as they’d known one another, Thor felt bereft of their joy. There was no joy at all—no giddy reunion, no happy squeals, nor jumping hugs. Only defeated expressions and eyes marred with the tell-tale dark rings of exhaustion, their skin reddened by tears. Much like the light in their eyes, their usual exuberance had dimmed, too.

Adjusting his grip on Mjolnir, Thor decided he would damned well know why.

“You appear as Sadness herself, sister.” He tried for levity as he slid into the space beside her, invoking a shared happy memory of one of Darcy's favorite animated films, but the attempt fell on deaf ears. Quickly setting Mjolnir aside, his hand appeared too large to his own eyes when Darcy lurched into his arms and his fingers wrapped around the back of her neck beneath her hair. His worry only increased ten-fold when her breath hitched and tears spilled over, coating her lashes. His eyes sought out his lover's, but found no answers there, either. “My Jane, what has happened here?”

In increasingly worrisome silence, she stared at the back of Darcy’s head, watery eyes unfocused and unseeing. Fingers tangled in the trailing tips of curls, her voice mechanical, she eventually said as if by rote, “They called the election. It’s all over.”

“Ah ... your grief is yet fresh.” Now Thor understood their grave demeanor. He aimed for their well-honed humor once more, “Your great lady champion has succumbed to the cult of the cheeto-faced shitgibbon, then.”

Jane snorted and leaned into Thor's comforting hand, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. It was a small thing, but he would take any small victory, for now.

“Isn't _my_ racist, sexist, shi’gibb’n m'therfugger,” his sister slurred. Angry tears of frustration leaked from both of her beautiful brown eyes, soaking his trews. "Sev’ny years, h'll se' us back," she mourned with a wet snuffle against his leg. Jane sniffled as well, whether in sympathy or equal parts helpless anger and sadness, he knew not. This was worse than he thought. Their chaotic emotions battered him in conflicting waves.

The weighty dark grey-blues of disillusionment and depression veritably poured off of the two women, lapping over him in suffocating waves. Crushing denial-mistrust-anger-disgust-horror-grief-fear came at him from front and side, nearly bowling him over.

So much fear... Fear was the worst—a scent all its own.

With the gentlest of touches, his fingertips pushed through the hair at her temple and he reminded his partner in lightning, “He need not be your president, either, sister. You will always have a home on Asgard, and an escape from this mockery of democracy. You need only ask and Heimdall will whisk you away at any time to escape the antiquated clutches of your Electoral College.”

A chuckle tickled her throat and her eyelids fluttered—a promising sign.

Jane twirled a flower across his knuckles until he adjusted his hold and took up the ingrained task in her stead, plaiting tiny stems into Darcy's locks. To each, he added a bit of philia seidr—comfort and affection, his mother’s own blessing for loved ones who are hurting. He tucked one of the blessed sprigs over his beloved’s ear as well, smiling when she sighed quietly and lay down, blanketing Darcy's back and side with her whole self, body and arms.

Silken tresses of gold and darkest chestnut spilled across his lap, so he contented himself with weaving more love into their manes until Darcy responded as he knew she would, with a beleaguered sigh. She turned her head and pressed her cheek to his leg. He obliged, stroking the hair away from her face.

“That’s cool, bro, and I appreciate the offer, but—” She sniffled most delicately. “I can’t lead a political rebellion from viking space Oz. Running away to greener pastures means one less voice raised here in opposition. I can’t—” She shook her head, noisily wiping her nose on his pants.

“—have that on your conscience.” Thor nodded in understanding, diplomatically letting the other go. What's a little mucous between siblings, after all?

“Right. Exactly.” She nodded once, firmly, determined in her resolve.

“What will you do to affect change?” he wondered, deftly pulling her from the wells of her personal abyss with a hint of challenge in his voice.

“Everything I can. Protest, vote, volunteer—generally be an enormous pain in the ass by exercising my constitutional rights.” She hugged him around the thigh, knocking her glasses askew.

“It sounds as if you have a plan, then.” Her mood shifted subtly, layered in more soothing blues and warm purples. The scent of sweet apples wafted up through the departing scents of cloying fear and grief.

“I do. I have a plan. It helps to plan, to have something to do when I'm done brooding. I just— We needed to be sad for a while, first." Her fingers played with Jane's, clasped between their bodies. "Ever since we were little girls, people we looked up to have been telling us we could be president—be _anything_ , if we wanted. But then to find out that being the most qualified and dedicating decades of your life to public service isn't enough just because you're a woman, and ambitious women are still regarded with suspicion and held to an impossible standard... Especially when your opponent took up politics on a lark a year ago and he's never even held office... He's not even a decent human being! It's a painful reminder that we have miles to go, you know?" She huffed, tugging at the edge of his cape with her other hand and grunting in renewed frustration—magenta, sharp and sour.

Bemused, he grinned at her silent request and removed his cape, tucking it in around their forlorn cuddle puddle. He felt the shift when Darcy's chest expanded and she exhaled deeply, promising, “I’ll be the biggest, most rebellious fly-in-the-ointment I can be right here, organizing protests and signing petitions and raising hell the way our forefathers intended. Troublemaking for a cause is where I do my best work.”

“Indeed you do, little sister. Indeed you do,” he replied, patting her hair and tucking it under the edge of his cape.

“Mm... Smells like home,” she murmured. Jane’s happy sigh concurred.

“Home is wherever you are,” he assured them, settling in.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on tumblr, if you like @ <https://chrissihr.tumblr.com/>


End file.
